Our Patch

Here in our fertile lush region everything grows like a weed, including the weeds.

As you would expect in a warm temperate part of the world, we have a huge variety of pest plants.

There are the classic creepers and stranglers like jasmine, honeysuckle and convolvulus that choke the plants that we’re trying to grow, and the dreaded privet trees with their ghastly flowers making us ill.

One of the problems of the internet is how difficult it is to advertise online.

So much of the web is funded by advertising that it’s hard to get away from it – unless you install an ad-blocker. So you might think, well, I’ll take advantage of that in my business, but unfortunately it’s not overly simple.

Unlike a regular newspaper or billboard, where you put the ad up and then you’re done, online advertising is much more complicated.

Well, partially that it’s not made by Microsoft, for starters. I know a lot of people use Outlook, and I’m not against it, necessarily, but there are so many problems associated with that program I’d need an entire chapter of a book just to explain them.

Playing sports has clear social, physical and mental health benefits for children. But evidence shows that youth sports in Western societies have become increasingly controlled and regulated by adults, which takes the fun out for many children.

Participation rates by adolescents have been declining and recent statistics released by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) show a 60% surge in sports injuries for children in the 10 to 14 age group over the past decade in New Zealand.

Recently Apple made a bit of stir by releasing a $US5000 computer screen, then charging an extra $US1000 for the stand that the monitor required to stay upright.

The cynic in me thinks this is probably just a marketing stunt – they wanted to charge $6000, but knew they’d get more publicity if they got everybody riled up about how ridiculous this is, and keep themselves in the headlines for a lot longer than if they’d just, you know, sold the thing.